A Miserable MerryChristmas

A Miserable, Merry Christmas

A miserable and merry Christmas? How could it be?
Christmas was coming. I wanted a pony. To make sure that my patents understood, I declared
that I wanted nothing else.
“Nothing,” I said.
“Not even a pair of high boots?”

That was hard. I did want boots, but I stuck to the pony. “No, not even boots?”
“Nor candy? There ought to be something to fill your stocking with, and Santa Claus can’t
put a pony into a stocking.”
That was true, and he couldn’t lead a pony down the chimney either। But no। “All I want is
a pony,” I said। “If I can’t have a pony, give me nothing, nothing.”

On Christmas Eve I hung up my stocking along with my sisters.
The next morning my sisters and I woke up at six. Then we raced downstairs to the fireplace.
And there they were, the gifts, all sorts of wonderful things, mixed-up piles of presents.
Only my stocking was empty: it hung limp; not a thing in it; and
under and around it- nothing. My sisters had knelt down, each by her pile of gifts; they
were crying with delight, till they looked up and saw me standing there looking so
miserable. They came over to me and felt my stocking:
nothing।


I don’t remember whether I cried at that moment, but my sisters did। They ran with me back

to my bed, and there we all cried till I became indignant. That helped
some. I got up, dressed, and driving my sisters away. I went out alone into the
stable, and there, all by myself, I
wept. My mother came out to me and she tried to comfort me. But I wanted no comfort. She
left me and went on into the house with sharp words for my father।


My sisters came to me, and I was rude. I ran away from them. I went around to the front of
the house, sat down on the steps, and the crying over, I ached. I was wronged, I was hurt.
And my father must have been hurt, too, a little. I saw him looking out of the window. He
was watching me of something for an hour or two, drawing back the curtain so little lest I catch him, but I saw his face, and I think I can see how the anxiety upon it, the worried impatience।


After an hour or two, I caught sight of a man riding a pony down the street, a pony and a
brand-new saddle; the most beautiful saddle I ever saw, and it was
a boy's saddle. And the pony! As he drew near, I saw the pony was really a small horse, with
a black mane and tail, and one white foot and a white star on his forehead. For such a horse
as that I would have given anything।


But the man came along, reading the numbers on the houses, and, as my hopes- my impossible
hopes- rose, he looked at our door and passed by, he and the pony, and the saddle. Too much,
I fell upon the steps and broke into tears। Suddenly I heard a voice.


“Say, kid,” it said, “do you know a boy named Lennie Steffens?”
I looked up. It was the man on the pony, back again.
“Yes,” I spluttered through my tears. “That's me.”
“Well,” he said, “then this is your horse. I’ve been looking all over for you and your
house. Why don’t you put your number where it can be seen?”
“Get down,” I said, running out to him। I wanted to ride.


He went on saying something about “ought to have got here at seven o’clock, but-”
I hardly heard, I could scarcely wait. I was so happy, so thrilled. I rode off up the
street. Such a beautiful pony. And mine! After a while I turned and trotted back to the
stable. There was the family, father, mother, sitters, all working for me, all happy. They
had been putting in place the tools of my new business: currycomb, brush, pitchfork-
everything, and there was hay in the loft।


But that Christmas, which my father had planned so carefully, was it the best or the worst I
ever knew? He often asked me that; I never could answer as a boy. I think now that it was
both. It covered the whole distance from broken-hearted misery to bursting happiness- too
fast। A grown-up could hardly have stood it.